Study finds pets help 78% of owners take breaks—now Calm and Mars are turning that bond into wellness tools

If you’ve ever felt like your pet knows exactly when to pull you away from the stress of your computer screen, you aren’t alone. 

A landmark study surveying over 30,000 pet owners in 20 different countries found that 78% of dog or cat owners report that their pets remind them to take breaks during work or tasks, with 50% of the participants saying this happens daily. The study, which was conducted by YouGov on behalf of Mars, is the largest international survey of its kind in the world. 

The findings resonated deeply with David Reilly, Global VP at Mars Petcare. “If my dog’s at daycare, I don’t take a break at lunch time,” he says. “But if my dogs’s not at daycare, somehow miraculously, I find the space to create up an hour to take my dog on a walk.”

Knowing that his relationship with his own pet had such an impact on his mental health, David was excited by the data. “I think 46% of people globally report their mental well-being is their number-one health priority and 56% of the population of the world has a pet. So if we can help unlock this idea that the pet could be your well-being superhero . . . then there’s a real opportunity there,” he says. 

To do this, Mars Petcare team needed to seek further expertise. “We have a deep knowledge of pets and we actually have a deep knowledge of the bond between people and pets. But we aren’t experts in human mental health,” says Reilly. The solution was to collaborate with consumer mental health company Calm.

Together, Mars and Calm collaborated on a collection of content meant to help pet lovers think about their bond with their pets as ways to improve their own well-being. Its launch marks the first pet-inspired collection featured on Calm. 

The content on Calm will include:

• A series of sleep stories inspired by the emotional connection between people and their pets.
• A series of guided meditations meant to help listeners reflect on the ways pets support their mental wellness.
• A series of breathing exercises.

On Mars’s pet advice platform Kinship, Mars and Calm are launching the interactive quiz My Pet Guru, which helps pet owners learn which of six “wellbeing superpowers” their pet has based on questions about their personalities and behaviors. 

“Together, we’re helping more people—and their pets—experience the proven benefits of the human-animal bond through real stories, science-backed tools, and supportive content,” says Greg Justice, chief content officer at Calm.

“Once the insights are rich . . . it doesn’t need to be overly clinical” says Reilly. The researchers, pet experts, and content creators, “worked together to find the sweet spot of ensuring that the content was true to what we’d heard, but also really accessible and also engaging for pet owners or other people who love pets.”

Mars and Calm are also seeking touching stories from pet owners to inform the wave of pet stories from Calm. “What I’m looking forward to, honestly, is hearing the stories that people share. Pets genuinely make a really incredible impact on people’s lives,” says Reilly.

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